If you’re not crazy about either Mark Warner or Jim Gilmore for Senate, there’s always William Redpath. A press release from the Libertarian Party says he’s now qualified for the ballot.

Here endeth today’s public-service announcement on behalf of third parties.

Doesn’t single malt mean a milkshake ?

(...need another taste test...)

Biscuit:

What good whiskey can you recommend? 

I’ve been trying new bourbons and whiskeys and am trying to settle on a brand. 

I think I need to go back and try a few over again…

Roy,

If so, you would hope our forces would be somewhat selective about who they round up and ship off.

I know some were released from both Abu Grahib and from Gitmo, which tells me they have already done a triage on the suspects and separated out the hardcore from the spectators.

Or not.

Going back to the LP, I think a third party is a positive development, but I’m pro-Warner. It’s so rare to see me for anything at all.

Just babies, puppydogs and good whiskey.

Uh, forget the crybabies and the yappers.

(in the mode of WC Fields)

*sigh* Hate to see this thread morphing into a debate on Gitmo.

BISQUIT: In Iraq and Afghanistan, there are not “battlefields”, but neighborhoods and villages.  Enemy forces deliberately mingle among the innocent, both as camouflage and to make it more likely that our forces will injure innocents, thereby helping them in the propaganda war.

In other words, “hanging around armed men and a battlefield” means in many cases either “sitting at home with my family” or “refusing to be driven out of one’s home by terrorists”, depending on how you want to phrase it.

I think someone hanging around armed men and a battlefield has an extremely high probability of being either an enemy combatant or else complicit in some way.

Granting that person a huge burden of proof only means he will go free and you will see him yet again on a different battlefield.

I have no problem with the legal and constitutional arguments on either side. I only see a big risk, nothing more.

If you are willing to accept that risk, then fine, no problem.

Larry,

“The tree of liberty must be replenished from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants” Thomas jefferson

“A little rebellion now and then...is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.” Thomas Jefferson

“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.” Patrick Henry.

“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.” G. Washington

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” B. Franklin

And I’ll throw this one in just because I think it’s prophetic to our current cultural climate.

“A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.” Alexander Hamilton.

BILL: Well said, as so often is the case.  BTW, I need to compliment you for your authoritative reply to the guy, months back, who was griping about not having sufficient notification about a General Assembly bill.  (Remember, he was the one who apparently wanted a personal phone call about bills that he would later decide were important.) BTW again, if you’d share an email address with us, I wouldn’t have to post this online.

LARRY:  First, I see that you still haven’t answered the question I asked: “What exactly are you accusing us [. . .] of, and on what are you basing it?”

Second, you infer bias from my wording.  I admit the bias, but am perfectly willing to revise the wording, if that will allow you to avoid going ballistic long enough to actually read and respond to the substance of my comment.  For the sentence which so offended you, please substitute: “It’s already well established that some of the people who were captured in foreign countries (some of them in violation of the laws of those countries) and then interrogated (often using methods that would be illegal if inflicted upon criminal suspects in the U.S., and which have been ruled by U.S.-sanctioned international and U.S. military tribunals in the past to be illegal) by agents of our government were in fact innocent.”

Now, would you answer the questions, or do I have to pretty up the wording for you again?

In case you’ve forgotten, the questions which you’ve been avoiding are:
1) Exactly what did you mean by saying that we “stand-up for terror detainees”?
2) On what do you base the accusation?
3) Do you believe that everyone (in the U.S.) accused of a crime is guilty?
4) Do you believe that everyone accused of being a terrorist is guilty?
5) If your answer to #3 and/or #4 is “Yes”, then please justify your answers.

“The founding fathers never—not for a moment—wrote the constitution with the idea that future generations could use it to attack government—our own—at every single turn. That’s my unwavering opinion.”

Well Larry, that’s where you’d be flat-out wrong. 

One of the main purposes of the Constitution was to limit the powers of the federal government, hold it in check and accountable to the people.  What is the purpose of a First Amendment protection of the right to speak freely, assemble and petition the government, if not to criticize and “attack” the government (perhaps not with guns and bombs, of course - not insurrection). 

And as far as future generations, some of them - Thomas Jefferson being the most obvious and outspoken about this notion - assumed that future generations would amend the Constitution, or tear it down and build a new one, as necessary to suit their needs.  In fact, Jefferson went so far as to write that he assumed there would be revolutions once each generation, or about every 20 years or so.  Which is where his infamous quote, “The Tree of Liberty must be nourished from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots” comes from.

The Constitution contains several provisions that indeed were specifically intended to enable “the people” to criticize, question, challenge, control and change the federal government.

Larry -

Your example totally misses the point.  In your example of the guys dealing drugs, you had evidence - your eyewitness observation of them dealing drugs.  In your other examples, you’re presupposing that the perpetrators actually and in fact did commit their bad acts.

What if there’s a guy rotting in a cell who was picked up because he was walking through a bad part of town where we know drug dealers routinely hang out - but he himself had nothing to do with drugs?  Maybe he was on his way to the bodega to buy a sandwich.

My understanding of the detainees at Gitmo is that most of them were picked up “in the field” during or after battles.  The question is what evidence or reasonably articulable factual circumstances were there to support the suspicion that that particular individual was a “terrorist” or fighting on the other side? 

I’m not, by a long shot, saying I believe all two hundred-plus of those guys - or any singe one of them - are innocent and pure as the driven snow.  But is it not at all possible that one or two of them were guys who were just in the wrong place at a bad time, and got swept up by the U.S. military mopping up after a firefight?  They see a guy running away (which would only make sense when bullets are whizzing around) and they grab him on suspicion that he’s Taliban.  Why do they think he’s Taliban?  Was he carrying any papers or items that would link him to them?  Was he holding an AK-47 and shooting at our troops?  Or was he just out there in the smoke and haze, running around and trying to get away? 

Then they drag him back to Gitmo and toss him in a cell for six years.  No charges, no evidence brought forth - just that the guy was out there when the fighting was going on.  Shouldn’t we at least be sure we’re holding people that there is at least some reason to believe are the kind of people we should be holding? 

By the way, I think some people think that granting a right of habeas corpus means we’ll have to release these guys.  All it means is they will be allowed to REQUEST to be ALLOWED to ASK the question as to why they’re being held.  A court could still deny their habeas petitions.  Prisoners in the U.S. make habeas requests all the time, and they are denied all the time.

I’m betting for a lot of the Gitmo detainees, the latest SCOTUS ruling won’t change a thing. 

What are we afraid of?

Fabulous post Marc. Wish I could state my view that clearly. But please be patient while I try again:

Its one thing to question government & keep arrogant tyrants in-check—its another thing to attack the government. There’s a stark difference, in my eyes. This has been my hang-up with Doug Wilder as mayor also. Instead of keeping things in-line he launched a full-throttle bloody assault against everyone. There is a difference!

Sometimes I feel I’m the only person who sees it (?).

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